You Want to Cloth Diaper But Your Partner Doesn’t
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So you want to use cloth diapers but your partner doesn’t. What do you do? Who wins in this situation? Well, you both can.
When I was pregnant I was interested in using cloth but quickly became overwhelmed with the choices so for the first six months or so we used (quote/unquote) natural or biodegradable disposable diapers. After our gifted diapers ran out I quickly started to feel like I was constantly buying diapers. I was sick of it and started looking into cloth diapers more.
My husband didn’t seem to be all that thrilled with the cloth diapering idea. He’s resistant to change and is the biggest creature of habit I’ve ever met. I know this so I never really had the “hey, let’s use cloth diapers!” conversation with him. I did some (not very thorough) research and bought a couple to try. I started out with a two-pack of gDiapers since they’re readily available and ordered some other random items. While none of these were perfect for me, it piqued my interest.
All the while the husband was still using the disposable diapers and hadn’t touched the cloth but I was becoming more and more interested. I finally decided to bite the bullet and bought some better cloth diapers. I believe my first real, good quality modern cloth diaper was a GroVia. That’s it, I was hooked. I started to build my stash more and more while the husband still used the disposables. Then the disposables ran out…
I had already decided that I wasn’t going to buy more disposables. I was the sole diaper buyer so this was when my husband was faced with the choice. Give the cloth a try or buy the disposable diapers himself. If he wanted to use disposables while I used cloth, I was fine with that, but he would need to buy them. My husband never did go buy a pack of diapers and started to use the cloth.
While I believe that he would probably rather use disposable diapers even to this day, he has embraced the cloth. He doesn’t leave poopy diapers for me to deal with, he uses cloth without complaint, has talked about them with his coworkers on a couple of occasions, and he has even started to embrace the “old school diapers” by using prefolds more and more.
It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing choice. If your partner isn’t on board then that’s fine. You don’t have to pressure him or try to talk him into it. Just buy cloth for yourself to use and let your partner use disposables. They just might come around after they see that cloth isn’t any more complicated. But even if they don’t, so what? Even using cloth diapers part-time will lower your diaper bill, lessen the amount of time your baby is exposed to the chemicals in diapers, and will cut the number of diapers in the landfill from your household at least in half.
Is/was your partner resistant to using cloth diapers? How did you deal with it and did they ever come around?
Photo credit: pierrotsomepeople via flickr
We were using disposables with our first. I wanted to switch to cloth but my husband was resistant. When he was 10 months old I finally decided to do a “diaper trial” with a local diaper store. I chose which cloth I liked and my husband still resisted some. I finally took the plunge and bought the cloth. I change most of the diapers anyway but to get him on board and willing to use them I bought the flushable liners. So when he pooped it could just easily be flushed. About a year into cloth diapering i stopped buying liners and now we are proud owners of a diaper sprayer. My husband has discussed cloth with others has no problem washing them, changing them or spraying them. And some of his co-workers have wives that want to or already use cloth and i have heard him say, “it’s not so bad” He is converted! 🙂
My husband would roll his eyes when I was pregnant and talked about cloth diapers. Now that our son is 11 months old and we’ve been using cloth almost the whole time, he talks about them more than I do!
I love that! The couple of times my husband has said that he was talking to coworkers about it I think I fell in love with him a little more 🙂
all I get is “these are really much nicer looking than disposables”.
It’s a start!
What you’ve described here, is exactly what goes on in my home as well. Although with the recent snow/ice storms, we didn’t have to leave for much and when the disposables ran out for him to use….he caved and went cloth. I was kinda proud of him lol.
Hopefully this is the beginning of a change for him! I know my husband probably doesn’t want to admit that cloth really isn’t so bad but I am proud of him every time he says, “I like this diaper”.